Lesbian Halloween 2009 Part 2: Into the Deep

In honor of Halloween ― the only holiday for which we’re actually encouraged to look recently deceased ― we decided to ask a handful of lesbian entertainers (actors, writers, filmmakers and comedians) about their horror-season preferences.

In part 1 of our 2099 Halloween series, we asked all about their favorite scary flicks, but here in part two, we take off the kid gloves and ask about fears. We probe the lesbian psyche in the most unscientific way possible to find the good, bad and ugly things that scare some of our favorite queer women. We received serious responses, hilarious quips, and one very amusing story about a little movie called Death Ship.

First, as a warm-up, filmmaker Rosser Goodman (Holding Trevor) shares with us her favorite horror memory.

The year was 1980. I was starting middle school in September. But, it was still summer. And, it was still hot. My mom was visiting her friend Lowell on the Eastern Shore in Maryland. I got dragged along. I’d met Lowell a bunch of times, but I’d never met any of her kids. She had a huge white, two story house with a screened in porch all the way around and a sweeping front yard. Her husband had died and she alone was raising her 10 kids. By the time we got there it was already dusk.

Hugs and kisses. Then Lowell started introducing each of her kids to us. There were some older boys and some little kids. We walked into the kitchen. Unloading the dishwasher, was Lowell’s blonde, teenage daughter ― three years older than I, she was about to start high school in September. As her mom announced us, she turned around ― I saw her face. In that very moment, for the first time in my lifetime ― the world stopped turning, I stopped breathing, my throat got a lump the size of a baseball ― her smile was so warm, it made my small palms cold. Her eyes were so blue I wanted to stare at them for the rest of my … visit. What was this?

At 11, I had seen plenty of girls in my time. I’d had cute babysitters, I guess. I knew, sort of, that I had a crush on another girl in 4th grade … but this was different. This was something else entirely.

A little while later, I was told that her older brother and his girlfriend were going to the drive-in to see a double feature: Prom Night and Death Ship.I also found out that she and I were going along too. [It was] just the two of us in the back of a pickup truck. I didn’t know which excited me more ― getting to ride in the back of the pick-up or the thought of hours next to her in the dark summer night heat, scared to death by horror.

Death Ship ran first. Somehow I sat through that whole movie nerve-wracked by the film and from fear of what I was feeling. I nuzzled as much as I could against that black hoodie sweatshirt she wore, but she was three years older and I lived on the other side of the state. A long-distance relationship with an older woman would have been doomed, right?

What was the question again? Oh, yeah, favorite horror movie of all time. Death Ship was my first in many, many ways. Though Prom Night ran next, [I was] exhausted ― I slept through it.

Without further ado, here were the responses to our final creepy question.

What do you think is the scariest/spookiest thing in the world?

Some of our panelists took the question quite seriously, putting forth honest answers about the things that give them the shakes.